


Days of Fire

by mythusmage



Category: Emberverse, SM Stirling
Genre: Literary fan Fic, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:57:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythusmage/pseuds/mythusmage





	Days of Fire

The Laurel Street Travel Center at the intersection of Laurel and Pacific highway had long been a bone of contention for airliner pilots landing at Lindbergh Field in San Diego. On the evening of March 13th, 1998 as American Flight 1196 out of Phoenix approached from the east, Captain Thomas Nair fretted about the parking structure, and the panel truck parked on top. Legend had it other aircraft had actually bounced landing gear off panel trucks before him, and that the FAA tended to view that sort of thing rather dimly. Not that he had any choice in the matter, for he was committed to landing and there was no sign of a sudden down shear in the offing.

The world blanked out when he was still a quarter mile from landing. Blanked out accompanied by every nerve being stimulated in his body. The captain came back to a cabin completely dark, completely silent. From the first class cabin the crew could hear anxious voices, but not what they were saying.

Captain Nair brought the nose back up and went through the check list by feel. Captain Henry Stokes, his co-pilot, followed along on his controls.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I have no idea," the pilot replied, "We seem to have lost all power. Let's get this plane level and the engines back up and running before this get worse."

"I don't think it's just us." Captain Stokes noted.

Nair looked out the front window, San Diego had gone completely dark.

* * * * *

Robert Holmes sat patiently waiting in his car at Pacific and Laurel for the light to change. He had papers to serve and dinner to get. And more film to buy, for the modern private detective spends far more on film for his camera than he does on ammunition. To his left was a young woman in a new car, tapping in a complex pattern on her steering wheel. Behind him more cars, each inhabited by at least one impatient person, for the traffic lights at this intersection were acting up, again.

When the traffic signals for Pacific Highway finally turned yellow he prepared himself to accelerate. Flight 1196 (American Airlines) was due at any moment, and there was a passenger on board he was going to meet come Hell or high water. Then the world disappeared.

Every nerve in his body awoke and he saw a light that permeated his mind. He came to himself in a car rapidly cooling in the evening air. A silent car, without a single working light. A good student of his ancestor, he looked around and found that all around him was silent and still. Not a light anywhere, not a sound other than the sound of his breathing, followed a few seconds later by creaking car door hinges and inquiring voices. He set the parking brake, made sure the ignition was disengaged, checked his side arm, and exited his car.

The woman he'd been studying before was exiting her vehicle, cussing mildly. About his age, about his height. A bit darker in skin tone than he, though that was hard to be sure of in the darkness. She looked at him.

"My car seems to have died." she told him.

"So has mine, and I don't think we're alone." he replied.

As she turned to look around he did as well, the two noting the stillness, the darkness around them. A continuing stillness and darkness which the sound of human voices and the light of the stars and the waxing moon did not truly suffice to dispel.

She turned back to him and was about to speak when the fireball blossomed on top of the Laurel Street Travel Center. A fireball announcing the catastrophic arrival of American Airlines Flight 1196 out of Phoenix.

Next: Chapter Two, Not Fans of Uther Donan Coyle, No


End file.
